Community Picket Lines Set Up in Hamilton and Windsor

For immediate release

Ottawa – This morning, we were informed that union and community members in Ontario set up picket lines at the Hamilton Processing Plant in Hamilton last night and the Tecumseh Post Office in Windsor today. In solidarity with postal workers, the protest-line will allow workers in, but will not allow mail out.

These actions come a day after members from several major unions in British Columbia disrupted mail delivery with demonstrations outside the Pacific Processing Plant in Richmond the third largest mail plant in the country. 

“You cannot legislate labour peace,” says CUPW National President Mike Palecek. “There are fifty thousand union members that have been prohibited from picketing at post offices in this country, and three million who haven’t. We are not the only ones willing to defend the right of free collective bargaining.”

Over the last 10 years, 55 percent of the workforce in Tecumseh Post Office has been eliminated and the remaining workers have been forced to pick up the slack, working 10 to 12-hour days almost year-round. Overburdening and overwork are real issues at Canada Post that need to be addressed.

What we’re seeing in Windsor today, and Vancouver and Hamilton yesterday, is that instead of resolving our dispute with Canada Post, the Trudeau Government has picked a fight with labour. “An injury to one is an injury to all” is much more than a slogan.

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For more information, please contact: 

EN – Emilie Tobin, CUPW Communications, at 613-882-2742 or at media@cupw-sttp.org

FR – Lise-Lyne Gélineau, President, CUPW Montreal local, at 514-914-0350 or at  lise-lyne.gelineau@sttpmtl.com